First Time in Ages

I just did something that I don’t think I have done since before Covid came along and mussed everything up.

As previously mentioned, it’s snowing today. Not a lot. We have about an inch on the ground. We might get another inch on top of that, but by no means is today’s storm anything to be worried or upset about, other than the fact that snow is always a pain in the ass. We are New Englanders. This is nuttin’.

However, I needed to go out and do the grocery shopping. My wife has been eating super healthy lately and she was out of all of the healthy things she needed for lunch. I had to go out and restock so that she could have a good lunch. That means I had to go out to the store before the snow stopped. Not only that, I had to go out before the snow removal crews started working. In other words, I had to drive in the fresh, untreated snow.

As previously stated, that was not a big deal. There was enough snow to make the roads a little slippery, but not enough to cause any real troubles for an experienced snow-driver. It made me think though… when was the last time I went out before the plowing started? I can’t remember. It’s been a long, long time. The last time had to have been pre-Covid lockdown. There hasn’t been a time since then that I had to be somewhere bad enough that I couldn’t wait for at least the plows getting one whack in. The only thing I could think of that would have made me go out right away was if one of my parents were in the hospital. If that happened I must have blocked it out of my memory. There was the drive home from Vermont a few weeks ago… does that count? I think the side roads might not have been hit yet, but the main roads had. I don’t know.

So I guess all I did today was spiritually renew my New England Winter Driver ID card. Yeah. I can still drive in the snow. Yippee for me, babie.

16 Days

16 days until our Florida vacation. Actually… 16 days and a wake up… meaning I think I counted wrong and it’s actually 17 days. Whatever, it’s coming up. Warm weather… I need it. I need it. It’s freakin’ cold in New England!

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18 Days Away

It feels a little silly to be hyping up for a vacation on the first week back after the holidays, but here we are. 18 days until we leave for Florida where the temperatures hopefully will be a ton higher than the frosty 25 degrees we’re dealing with right now.

18 days is a long way off still, but I am starting to get psyched for it. Disney 2025 part one of two.

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Now I Have to Go

There is going to be a ton of back story to this one. You’ve been warned.

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Bridget Murphy. Her friends called her Bride, or Bridie. She had a bunch of kids (five, but one passed as an infant) and those kids all had kids of their own and two of those kids had a lot of kids of their own. That means I have roughly 25,000 first cousins (I exaggerate of course, but only a little). Many of us are on a Facebook Messenger chat thread together.

One of my zillion first cousins’ daughter got married this weekend. It was a destination wedding. The destination was in Ireland. Glorious! Some of my cousins have been sending photos from the trip to the Messenger thread. One of them just sent something that changed my personal mindset about visiting Ireland. How so?

I have always wanted to visit Ireland but now… now I HAVE TO VISIT IRELAND!

The photo was of a store front. The name of the store:

Bridie Murphy’s Home Bakery.

Yes, I now have to go to Ireland. I have to go to the land where Bridie Murphy’s Home Bakery exists. It is a must. It is a moral imperative. It has to happen.

Up Next

Let’s see here… we did Halloween, then we did Thanksgiving twice, then we decorated the house for xmas, then we did xmas, then we did New Years… what’s next?

I’ll tell you what’s next… Florida. Jen has a milestone birthday in early February. Jen’s mother has a milestone birthday too. Yeah, screw it, let’s go to Disney World. Bellana is going to come with us this time. Harry’s in the middle of his last semester in college so he can’t come, but back in February of 2020 we went to Disney World while Harry was on school vacation and Bellana wasn’t, so this trip will even the score.

We’re not going until late in the month so there is plenty of time for me to post old photos from previous Disney trips to psyche everyone up for it. There is also plenty of time for me and Jen to binge every Disney YouTube channel that exists to prep for everything that is to come.

Up next for us on the huge event schedule… Disney World 2025-A*!

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*Why is it 2025-A you ask? Because there will be a Disney World 2025-B trip over the summer, that’s why. We are out of control. Out Of Control.

First Day of Winter

Well… it’s winter again. Again. Literally winter, as opposed to the last three plus months which was figuratively winter. Literal winter runs from December to March. Here in New England, figurative winter runs from September 1st through sometime in late June. The upside of the first day of winter is that from now on the days start getting longer. The downside is that it’s going to get colder and more awful with each passing day, and it’s going to take so long for the days to get longer enough that it matters that it won’t make any real difference for months.

I hate winter.

December 21st puts us in the home stretch for xmas. I am still waiting for the amazonians to deliver a couple of things so the wrapping is still not complete. I have to go out and pick up a few things today as well. That includes some food supplies for xmas eve, xmas dinner, and our slightly delayed annual xmas eve party which happens on the Sunday after xmas this year. I also need to bring my work-holiday gift to my sister’s today so we can have it with xmas dinner.

I need to play guitar but there probably won’t be time for it. I need to go out and take pictures of stuff but the weather likely won’t let me. Ugh.

Lots to do, but I can’t do anything until I clean the tiny amount of snow we got yesterday off of the cars and the driveway. Ugh.

I hate winter. Remember that time a few years ago when we went to Florida in January and the weather was warm? Can we maybe do that again?

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